PHP sqlite is returning all strings no matter what data type is defined

Question

I'm running unit tests using the sqlite in memory database and I've run into an issue.

When I perform the tests using a mysql database, the following comparison works properly

if ($item->user_id === Auth::id())

It will evaluate to true if the numbers match and false if they don't. When I use the sqlite in memory database the conditional statement will always return false because the user_id attribute is returned as a string instead of the proper int data type.

I've read a few posts and comments saying this is a configurable thing for sqlite in PHP and others saying it cannot be changed. I want to use the in memory sqlite database for my tests but if I can't change this behavior I have to change my conditionals to use == instead of the more strict ===. How can I change the behavior of the sqlite queries?

UPDATE

I've also tried adding this to the sqlite configuration

'sqlite' => [
    'driver' => 'sqlite',
    'database' => env('DB_DATABASE', database_path('database.sqlite')),
    'prefix' => '',
    'options'   => [
        PDO::ATTR_STRINGIFY_FETCHES => false,
        PDO::FETCH_NUM => true,
    ],
],

This doesn't help either.

Answer 1

The problem is actually with PDO, rather than SQLite or Laravel specifically, and in fact happens with all databases. The fact that you are getting ints from MySQL suggests you are using the mysqlnd driver, which solves this for MySQL.

The solution I went with was to explicitly cast fields in my model:

protected $casts = [
    'user_id' => 'integer'
];